Tag: help!

We’ve been putting together regular weekly round-ups of links since January 2014 having done a one-off in November 2013 to prove the point that blogging was alive and well.

We’ve settled into a routine now — each of us bookmarks things throughout the week; we do a final scan of our Feedly feed, Twitter and the news on Saturday morning; and write it up before breakfast. That’s great in terms of keeping it on track and on time but…

With routine comes a rut and we are aware that we might be leaning on the same sources a bit much, featuring the same names, leaning towards a certain type of content. Of course it’s always going to reflect our preferences and interests but, still, we don’t want to miss essential stuff, and some of the most interesting links in recent months have come from tips sent by readers and fellow bloggers.

So, we just want to make it clear that suggestions for things we ought to read and should consider featuring here are always welcome.

We’re especially interested in articles and blog posts from beyond the beer world that we might not stumble across ourselves — pieces written by historians, scientists, cultural critics, local journalists, comedians and columnists who might only mention beer or pubs once a year but, when they do, do it well.

Local intelligence — interesting new bars, pubs and breweries — and even straight-up gossip are also interesting and useful.

Just Tweet or direct message us @boakandbailey or send us an email: contact@boakandbailey.com

For our current Big Project we’re trying to get in touch with people who remember drinking in real ale pubs of the 1970s.

We’ll unpack that term a bit: before about 1975, there were pubs that sold cask-conditioned beer, AKA ‘traditional draught’, but it was usually whatever was local and the choice might consist of one, two or three different beers.

After CAMRA got everyone stirred up some pubs began to tailor their offer to appeal to Campaign members by offering four, six, eight, or even eighteen different beers from the far ends of the country.

If you read Brew Britannia you’ll remember that we covered all of this in Chapter Five, ‘More an Exhibition Than a Pub’, but now we’d like some fresh testimony for a different take.

Stained glass at the Moon Under Water, taken on our visit in February 2016.

This is very specific: we want to talk to anyone who recalls attending the opening of The Moon Under Water on Deansgate, Manchester, on 15 August 1995.

We’ve heard from people who went not long after — memories of mannequins in the former cinema stalls, and awe at the sheer size of the place — but no-one seems to remember day one.

There must have been a ribbon-cutting ceremony — Eddie Gershon, who does PR for Wetherspoon’s, reckons it was covered in the Manchester Evening News though he doesn’t have any clippings or photos.

If you were there, get in touch. If you have a vague memory of your mate having gone along, or your cousin working behind the bar, give ’em a nudge. We’re contact@boakandbailey.com and any memory, however small or apparently insignificant, might be just what we need.

Did you, your parents, or grandparents grow up or live on a housing estate in England? If so, we want your memories of its pubs — or lack of them.

First, we’re interested in the period between the wars when big estates first started to be planned and built around the country, like at Downham in South East London, or Quarry Hill in Leeds.

The pubs on these estates tended to be huge, well-equipped, superficially resembling stately homes, and were often experimental: when it was first built, The Downham Tavern, for example, had no bars — only waiter service.

Here’s what used to be the Yew Tree, Wythenshawe, Manchester, built in the 1930s:

Realistically, to remember these pubs as they were before World War II, you’d have to be… what? More than 90-years-old? Still, we’ve got to ask. Alternatively, second-hand tales might still be useful, and any diaries, papers, photo or letters certainly would be.

And, slightly more realistically, recollections of these pubs in their later years, in the 1950s through to the 1980s, are also of great interest — how did the experiment work out?

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Secondly, we’re also interested in post-war pubs — the kind built from the early 1950s until the 1970s, usually out of brick, often on the plain side, like this constructed by Truman’s in Bethnal Green, East London, next to the Victorian building it was to replace:

SOURCE: The Black Eagle, Winter 1968, photographer uncredited.

Pubs built in to tower blocks like those at Park Hill, Sheffield, are a particular blank for us at the moment. Was having a pub in your block convenient, or was going down in a lift to get a pint more trouble than it was worth?

We’re particularly interested in hearing from anyone who remembers drinking in these pubs when they were brand new, when the breweries that built them were full of pride and optimism.

If you feel inclined to help us out, please do ask your parents or grandparents — if nothing else, you might find their reminiscences interesting yourself.

But more recent memories are very welcome to — every email we get, even if it’s only two sentences long, helps us build a rounded picture.

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In both cases, we are gently testing received wisdom which says estate pubs, almost by definition, are soulless, miserable and unpopular. Maybe what you tell us will prove that view right, or maybe it will help to challenge it. Either is helpful.

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Or perhaps you recall moving to an estate with no pubs, as does this 2014 commenter on a blog post about slum clearance in West London:

When the time came we were offered a place in Lavender Hill. My mother was too ill to go with us, and when we got there my dad didn’t even bother to get off the bus. His only comment was “Not a pub for miles!”

Did you drink, eat, work at or run a gastropub between 1990-1998? If so, we’d love to hear from you.

We’re especially interested in diary entries, letters, articles, emails or other records you might have made at the time — nothing is too scrappy or too minor.

But memories are helpful too.

We’ve got lots of facts, dates and figures: what we want to know is, how did these places feel?

Like journalist Kathryn Flett, a great champion of gastropubs in the 1990s, did you appreciate their un-blokey atmosphere and rustic chic? Did you welcome the opportunity to enjoy good food without having to dress, mind your table manners and take out a small bank loan?

Or perhaps you’re with Patrick Harveson who, in 1995, wrote an article in the Times calling for The Campaign for Real Pubs. Did your local became somewhere you no longer felt you could pop in for a pint? Maybe you saw the very idea of the gastropub as dangerous — a threat to the very idea of what pubs are meant to be.

The Eagle in Clerkenwell, London, generally given credit as the original gastropub after its 1991 reinvention, is one we’re particularly focusing on but we’d be happy to hear about any others you think are notable or interesting.

You can comment below but it’d be much more useful if you could email us via contact@boakandbailey.com.